Defining Computational Aesthetics

This paper attempts to define the discipline of Computational Aesthetics in the context of computer science, partly reflecting the contributions and comprehensive discussions of the first EG Workshop on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging. It points out the current problem of "aesthetic pollution" as a side effect of computer aided design and gives motivation to improve current computational methods by adding aesthetic awareness. An introduction on how this could be achieved is given, listing significant results of previous research. It turned out that there are factors of aesthetics such as complexity and order, that could add up to a working measure. For building a pragmatic view on such measures, very restrictive scenarios of application are given. To conclude, the major aspects of this new discipline are stressed. They are (1) developing computational methods for aesthetic decisions, (2) taking human perception into account and (3) focusing on aesthetics in form and particularly objects of design, in order to guarantee immediate application.